Low Desert Landscape Design-Intro

Time and again I receive questions from people, who have moved from zones 6 & 7, wondering what they can plant other than a lawn that will be artistically pleasing, and not emerge like the cookie cutter yardscapes that permeate the valley. Replicating the practices of their previous yards of the north, new desert inhabitants run into immense problems. These visionary gardeners often end up with dead plants, multiple weeds, and mounds of frustration. This common cycle of landscape habits often drives the disgruntled homeowner into planting a gravel lawn, and sowing various, colorful boulders, creating anything but the blissful paradise they envisioned.

This article launches a series of articles on basic principles of design for landscapes in the low desert. Often desert dwellers like you are overwhelmed with the task of designing a new, aesthetic, and practical landscape. You journey to the bookstores with bright hopes of discovering just the right book that will give you the seeds of knowledge needed for your desert oasis. To your delight you discover there are many books that have page after page on designing a landscape. Unfortunately, after careful observation and maybe some experimentation you discover there are few books that address the unique environment of the desert southwest. Without knowledge of the unbearable heat, short season cycles, and often severe weather patterns, you will inevitably resort to the easy, but dull solution planting gravel sod with little faith of one living thing growing in your outside space. Fortunately, not all is lost and there is hope for those of you longing for gratifying scenery from your front door.

This series will give sad landscapers renewed optimism because it will contain advice for designing your landscapes specifically for the low desert. The series will help you create a successful landscape that you will be proud to show off. I will include information to help you:

• Determine what flavor or theme you want your landscape to be,
• Help you assess and take full advantage of your current resources
• Establish a design that is aesthetic, and harmonious in rhythm, color and layout,
• Provide suggestions and examples of plants, shrubs and trees that work well here in the low desert

Whether you have a new home providing a completely clean canvas to work with, or a homeowner who wants to spruce up the old landscape, you will find useful information and perhaps a few new ideas to try. With these articles in hand, along with a healthy dose of imagination, your landscape will look so professional that neighbors and friends will be asking for your landscaper's business card.